


the fog is rising

by sashawire



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, F/F, Human Nature, Immortals, Love, Minor Character Death, godoka and god-mura
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23133079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sashawire/pseuds/sashawire
Summary: The two of them are quiet for a moment as the music swells and distant laughter echoes. Madoka stares dolefully at the happy dancers.“It’s disgusting, isn’t it?” Homura tilts her head back, eyes on the stars, dotted between strung lanterns. “To celebrate a time like this, sending their youth out to fight each other. Celebrating human lust for power, their greed, their—are you crying?”Madoka shifts one gloved hand upwards to wipe at her eye. “Of course I am,” she whispers. “I’m sad.”...Homura is Life. Madoka is Death. They’re figuring themselves out.
Relationships: Akemi Homura/Kaname Madoka
Comments: 25
Kudos: 142





	the fog is rising

**Author's Note:**

> Title is based on Emily Dickinson’s last words. “I must go in, for the fog is rising.”
> 
> This fic is inspired by and dedicated to [this](https://chickpeace.tumblr.com/post/635516292338745344/beetlegarden-we-are-not-born-to-die-what-are) tumblr post.
> 
> honestly this fic is just a bunch of thoughts about the nature of humanity etc strung together with the vague themes of life and death. have fun with this one!
> 
> (my tumblr is @chickpeace)
> 
> warnings for what may be considered suicide rhetoric (no actual suicidal people, though), blood, and minor character & animal death.

“Funny seeing you here,”

Homura doesn’t take her eyes off the whirling dance-floor in front of her. “Not really. I’d be more surprised if I didn’t find you here,”

“This is another one of those things, isn’t it?” Madoka sticks out like a sore thumb, a stroke of pink and white against the fashionable dark greys and browns of the decade. “Those crossover points you keep telling me about?”

“I think so.” Homura takes a swig from the drink in her hand, empties it, and it disappears. “Tonight they’re full of life, and tomorrow they’ll be fighting and dying miserably.”

The soldier-to-bes dance with their lady partners, the air heady with alcohol and sweat and excitement. Tomorrow, they’re going out to the trenches.

“Dawn and dusk,” Madoka recalls Homura’s words. “We see each other at times like these…”

“...Because this is where life and death meet.” Homura finishes.

The two of them are quiet for a moment as the music swells and distant laughter echoes. Madoka stares dolefully at the happy dancers.

“It’s disgusting, isn’t it?” Homura tilts her head back, eyes on the stars, dotted between strung lanterns. “To celebrate a time like this, sending their youth out to fight each other. Celebrating human lust for power, their greed, their—are you crying?”

Madoka shifts one gloved hand upwards to wipe at her eye. “Of course I am,” she whispers. “I’m sad.”

“This isn’t humanity’s first war. Or its last,”

“And I’ll never stop feeling sad when they announce a new one,” Madoka says. “I refuse to turn a cold shoulder to it.”

Homura shrugs. “I suppose I can be the cold and cruel one in this relationship.” Before Madoka can protest, Homura turns to her and asks, “Would you like to dance with me?”

There’s still sorrow in Madoka’s eyes, but she takes Homura’s hand anyway with the barest quirk of her lips. They shift into more period-appropriate clothing.

In the adrenaline-high throng of the dance, people moving to and fro, switching partners and swinging as if their lives depended on it, no one notices the two women dancing by themselves on the edge.

Homura says, “The world will be grieving by tomorrow.”

“And so will we,” Madoka replies.

*

When Homura is purposefully searching for Madoka, the first place she looks is in a forest.

It’s the easiest place for the two of them to find their ways to each other. The forest is spilling with life, huge, yawning oak trees, cheeping birds, flies and bugs buzzing about their daily lives. It all just shrieks,  _ I’m here! I’m here! I’m alive, I exist! _

It's also an eternal battlefield. Plantlife choking each other over water or sunlight, animals mauling each other over territory or mates, the predator and prey locked in a cycle of finding and fleeing. It’s a crossover between life and death.

Homura finds Madoka crouched over a still body.

The rabbit is dead, even a mortal could see that from a hundred feet away. A tiny pink tongue peeps out of the animal’s slack mouth, and its eyes were marble-like.

Homura keeps her distance.

The rabbit peels itself upwards, away from its physical body. Madoka scoops up its ghostly form in one smooth movement, well-versed in this procedure. She strokes along its translucent fur.

“You can come closer,” says Madoka. “Sit with me.”

*

Homura crouches next to a small boy.

Every inch of his skin is smudged, grimy. He’s bones, twig-like and snappable. His eyes are those of a dead fish.

She sits next to him. The ground is cold.

“I’m sorry,” she says to the little orphan boy, swallowed in rags. “I know it hurts.”

He doesn’t reply. He’s sick of her, she knows.

*

“You’re spending a lot of time in the forest, lately,” Madoka observes.

They sit, cross-legged and prim next to a sunken, stagnant pond. The moss is cold and the birds chitter above them.

Homura says, “It’s hard to walk with the humans sometimes,”

“That’s okay.” The rabbit is still huddled comfortably in Madoka’s arms. “We… We all need a break, once in a while.”

*

There’s a little alley, in a big city. It’s squeezed between an office block and an obscure, rarely-frequented museum. Hundreds of people pass by and through it every day of the week.

It doesn't have the best upkeep. Like many alleys, it’s dark, dank, and a bit damp.

When Homura touches her fingers to the wet ground, they come away red.

Braced against the wall, there’s a body in the shadow of a dumpster. Or, not a body  _ quite _ yet.

The girl is tall. Perhaps even oddly tall for her age. Curled around the bullet hole in her abdomen, she’s tiny. Her breathing is fast and short, irregular. She’s crying, or whimpering, or something in between.

Homura does her best not to make eye contact with her.

The victim’s breathing stutters, stutters. Her grip on the bullet wound slackens. Madoka bursts into view.

She’s breathtaking, ethereal as she always has been. She is a reassuring smile and warm eyes, clothes and hair flowing endlessly. She is both incomprehensible and familiar. An alien creature and an old friend.

_ It’s alright, _ Madoka says without words.

She hovers, facing downwards towards the dying girl.

The victim’s eyes glimmer, seemingly in reflection of Madoka’s radiance. But it’s not. That’s simply how people look at Madoka in their final moments; as if they’re seeing an angel.

Madoka reaches out, and the girl smiles with bloody lips, and her eyes go empty. She’s gone.

*

“I’m cruel,” Homura says. They’ve been sitting by the pond for minutes, or years. “That’s what the humans say about me. I’m cold and I’m cruel.”

At some point, a rabbit has climbed into her own lap. It’s warm and snuffling.

Madoka is quiet for a moment, staring into the unmoving green water.

“Humans have a tendency to focus on the negative.” Madoka lands on, finally. She glances longingly at the bunny on Homura’s legs, but it’s not her place to touch the living.

“You admit that I’m cold?” Homura questions mildly.

“To them, you’re cold and you’re cruel and you’re warm and you’re gentle.” Madoka faces her fully, seriously. “You’re every human experience condensed into one and more. One teeny-tiny word isn’t nearly enough to describe you, Homura.”

*

Homura sees them all.

She observes every living being, every inhale and every exhale, every lifetime. She watches them as pudgy little newborns, stomping toddlers, gangly teens, bright-eyed young adults, middle-aged maturity, elders crinkled and folded with age.

Homura watches them, and feels every scrape and bruise, every toothy grin, every pair of exhausted eye-bags. She knows them like an extension of herself.

When she can’t watch over them anymore, Madoka is there to pick up the pieces. She strokes their cheek as the light fades from their eyes and she pulls them into her arms and she whispers  _ it’s going to be alright now _ without the need for words.

Young, old, sickly, strong, everything dies eventually.

Why do they keep dragging themselves through such stress and pain and hardship that Homura brings?

*

“Most grow tired of me after time,” Homura says. “Sometimes very, very little time.”

“They grow tired after a long day spent adventuring as well,” Madoka opens her arms, and the ghostly rabbit hops into the unknown. “Do they regret the journey as they lay down to sleep?”

*

Homura doesn’t often go to funerals.

It feels off, it feels intrusive. It feels as if she’s overstaying her welcome. It’s not her place to view the dead.

For whatever reason, she goes to the funeral of the girl who was shot in the alleyway. It’s a somber affair. Most of the attendees are either clearing their throats gruffly or sniffling discreetly into their sleeves. Homura listens from the shadow of the very back row.

Afterwards, the black-swathed company gathers for refreshments in the girl’s family’s house. Homura’s breath catches in her throat.

The walls are filled with pictures of the victim, from framed family photos to cheap photo booth printouts. What isn’t covered in pictures, flowers from other families in attendance fill the room, lilies and carnations and orchids, blooming outwards.

The small sitting room is filled with mellow chatter. Some are gnawing on sandwiches, some are clinking their glasses together, one or two are even smiling clumsily. All of them are discussing stories from the dead girl’s life with fondness on their tongue and a glimmer in their eyes.

“Do you see that?”

Homura would later refuse to admit that she startled as Madoka materialized beside her.  _ Crossover point, _ she reminds herself. “See what?”

“The celebration.”

“Hm? This isn’t a party.” Homura looks out into the tight-knit group of family and friends mourning a single person. “You don’t celebrate the death of someone you loved.”

Madoka frowns lightly, and gestures to the room in general. Clinking glass and quirked lips and soft words and just a couple of tears. “Homura, they’re not celebrating me,” she says, “They’re celebrating her life. They’re celebrating  _ you.” _

*

Homura scoots sideways through the clumpy pond grass, and takes Madoka’s hand. Their fingers fit together perfectly; they always have.

*

There’s a tradition humans have had since they first discovered fire.

They light up a campfire, whether it be just a couple of licks of flame or a boulder-sized blaze, and sit around it in a circle, talking and warming themselves.

Sometimes they cook food, sometimes they sing, sometimes they dance, sometimes they just drink their fermented fruit juices and exchange stories, but there’s always an air to it. Happiness, liveliness, contentedness, sleepiness. Just soaking in each others’ company.

They call it the hearth.

Some places, the use of the hearth has died down somewhat, with the invention of ovens and big cities and indoor heating. But some people still love to wander what’s left of the forests and set up their own campfire and sit around it with their loved ones.

Homura comes across one of these small groups while ambling around on her own. A gathering of young adults, friends presumably, crowded around a fire. There’s legs thrown across laps and there’s embarrassing anecdotes shared and there’s jokes met with giddy laughter.

They can’t see Homura, but she hangs behind the trees anyway. This is none of her business.

When the campfire dies down and the stars are set deep in the sky and more people are asleep on top of each other than awake, they shamble off to bed, collapsing into their delicate little tents.

Once the last person yawns and stamps out the embers before leaving, Homura moves forward.

She sits and stares at the cold ashes, wondering.

If the fire was going to die out eventually, was it worth the brief night it burned?

*

The question has been fading in and out of her mind since the first ever human died.

“Why do you only take your goddess form while collecting human souls?”

“That’s how humans see me,” Madoka says. In a burst of light, there she is; the ethereal beauty, a shining universe unto herself. “Untouchable. Otherworldly.”

“You’re not.”

Madoka smiles sadly.

Homura steps forward, and cups her hands around Madoka’s cheeks. Makoda closes her eyes a moment before Homura does, and their foreheads are pressed together, breathing in each other.

“See?” Homura murmurs. “We fit together. There's nothing to be afraid of.”

Homura can’t imagine what they must look like. Homura, so small and plain and fragile, surrounded by Madoka’s infinite radiance, infinite warmth.

Madoka lifts her hands to rest against Homura's. Homura feels tears dripping gently to her fingers, but she thinks that maybe, if she were to open her eyes at that moment, Madoka would be smiling. Properly.

*

Humans will do anything to survive.

It’s something that has confounded Homura since the beginning of the human race, their willingness to bite and jab and scratch just to  _ live. _

If you saw off a limb or rip out an eye or shatter a bone, they claw their fingers into the dirt and keep dragging themselves forward and keep refusing to die.

It's the same boy from earlier. His arms are so thin it's unbelievable that they don't shatter when the wind blows too hard, and his eyes are too big for his shrunken face.

He fights a pack of stray dogs over a chunk of bread, and wins.

Homura sees him tearing into the bread with fervour, not chewing at all. She can't understand. Why? Why is this starved, underdeveloped child willing to battle a group of feral dogs over a scrap of bread, when it is so much easier to just curl up and die?

Humans will do anything to survive. Homura can't understand.

*

They're lying on their backs on the forest carpet. The trees block the sky above, but it's night time. The moon is out.

Madoka's head is tucked into Homura's neck and their hands are tangled together in a confusing, messy knot.

It's uncertain where Homura ends and Madoka begins.

*

Love is something Homura understands. Of course she understands.

Someone finds the starving little boy.

They take him into the custody of the state.

Then he’s adopted, and his life has changed entirely in one continuous whirlwind.

His new parents read him stories about space or history or anything he's interested in and buy him new clothes and then more when he starts growing to the size of a normal kid and teach him the code word to whisper to them if he gets overwhelmed.

There's a dog he doesn't have to fight for food. She always knows when he's feeling scared at night and comes skittering down the hallway to cuddle up next to him.

And when the dog isn't enough, his parents are willing to talk to him and sit with him and hold him if necessary until he falls asleep trembling with leftover panic and trauma that he's not old enough to understand yet.

Love is everywhere, when you know where to look. It’s scrawled across notes, presented in bunches of flowers, baked into meals, splattered onto paintings, steeped into tea, strung into music, knitted into clothing or blankets. The world is brimming with little acts of love, gifts that say  _ I thought of you. _

Love, like death, is inescapable. Homura would know.

*

“Dance with me,” says Madoka.

How could she disagree? Dancing is something the two of them have been doing for as long as they can remember.

Homura leans over and takes Madoka’s hand.

*

There’s a baby sleeping in a crib. Just a couple of days old, swaddled in endless blankets and a tiny little hat for her tiny little head.

There are only two people in the hospital room at that moment, the new parents, fast asleep, but there’s a hum in the air, the residue of everything the room’s earlier visitors left behind.

Homura hovers in the doorway, breathing deeply and trying to figure out why the prickling of her skin isn’t unpleasant. The soft buzz of emotion isn’t unfamiliar, but she feels raw, like every sensation she’d become numb to has clawed her toughened skin open and exposed her to the air.

It’s love.

The feeling in the air, the hand-knitted baby hat, the clasped hands of the parents, the blanket brought from home, just the endless signs that the people in this room love and are loved.

Homura pads over to the cradle, and slips off the ground to float above it, facing the newborn.

The baby opens her eyes, so big in her tiny face that they’re almost alien, and stares at her. She’s too young to smile or lift her arms or do much but cry and eat, but she watches Homura like she’s both something strange and something completely normal.

The kid’s only a few days old, after all—everything’s new to her.

Homura stares back.

The first thing that springs to mind, in this small room filled with so much, is the campfire. Of people sitting around a fire and radiating love—for their family, for their friends, for the community in general.

Every fire burns out eventually. Every human dies eventually.

Just because something is destined to end, doesn’t mean it  _ exists _ to end. Doesn’t mean it has no significance while it lasts.

“I think I get it now.” Homura whispers. The child watches her.

*

They dance. Human forms are corporal, and awkward, and function weirdly. They trip over stray tree roots and twigs get stuck in Madoka’s pigtails and their hands are getting damp from being clasped for so long.

How humans can exist like this all the time, in their little, clumsy, sweaty bodies, Homura can’t say. But it’s fun, and it’s graceless, and Homura likes the feeling of Madoka’s hand tangled with hers, their arms wrapped around each other.

Madoka is humming tunelessly, watching their feet, probably worrying about one of them twisting their ankle in a rabbit hole. She smells like pond reeds and there’s dirt on her clothes that she still hasn’t noticed yet.

“Hey, Madoka,” Homura calls, drawing Madoka’s attention back to her. “I think I figured out why you like the human form so much.”

Madoka tilts her head to the side. “I mean, my goddess form is extreme and unnecessary, I couldn’t be walking around like that all the time—”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s probably part of it. But! I started looking more closely at the weird way humans interact with the world and,” Homura pauses, a million colours of everything she’s seen and felt flashing through her head. “Humans exist to love, I think.”

Madoka remains quiet, looking at Homura.

“All, all the places I’ve been, everything I’ve seen, none of it  _ means _ anything to them without love. Without it, it’s just a bunch of people existing together for no reason.” Homura takes a deep breath. “I’ve spent so long trying to figure out why they keep going, keep enduring everything even though there’s no purpose, but there is, there is. It’s love.”

*

Homura didn’t create humans. Not directly.

She didn’t breathe life into small, crude clay figures, she didn’t fashion them out of dust and liquid, she didn’t create them in her own image.

Ultimately, they created themselves. They chose to stand upright, to use their thumbs for tinkering with their tools and throwing their spears and striking their  _ fire. _

Maybe, she thinks, maybe that is why she can’t help them. She didn’t create them directly, so she can’t interfere directly.

Thus, their only option is to help each other. Homura can’t hold out a hand for them when they’re on the ground, so it must be someone else, another human.

Without love or compassion for others, human civilization crumples under its own greed.

*

Homura dances with Madoka until the trees fall away behind them and the sky opens up, the stars crowding together above them, each one so familiar that Homura feels like she could cup her hands around it and pull it to her chest and remember everything that has happened to her under its watch.

Is that how the humans might feel about her?

“Homura,” Madoka says. “What was your theory for why I take a human form so much?”

Homura jolts, remembering the reason she had started their earlier conversation in the first place. She’d been so caught up in finally understanding humans after thousands of years of them fighting and dancing and suffering and loving, that she’d forgotten her original point.

Madoka is still looking at her, and there’s something in her eyes, an infinite fondness that wraps Homura’s entire body in warmth without the need for a hug. Homura cannot comprehend for a moment, the human idea that life  _ gives  _ and death  _ takes. _

“What I was trying to say,” Homura clears her throat. “What I was trying to say was, you are a being who loves, Madoka. You take everything that dies into your arms and you love them so much it’s near incomprehensible. You take the form of the humans because it’s the form that  _ fits.” _

Madoka thinks about it for a moment. “I think you’re right,” she says finally, then chooses a very human form of affection.

She stands on her toes (why Madoka decided on such a tiny human body is unclear, but it feels right) and presses her lips to Homura’s.

It’s short and dry and warm. Homura’s insides flop around like fish on land.

Madoka pulls away after only a couple of seconds, and Homura reels just a little bit. She wants to kiss Madoka again. She wants to kiss her for a long time. Madoka says, “But you’re missing something there, Homura,”

“Hm?” Homura responds, still a little dazed.

“You love them too.” Madoka takes Homura’s hands and squeezes them. They stopped dancing at some point, so now they’re just two figures in a field, leaning into the never-ending sky. “You love them.”

Homura has to think about that for a moment. The rabbit, the dying girl, the little boy, the newborn baby. Countless,  _ countless _ others.

“Oh.” Was that love all along?

“Homura,” There’s a hand on her cheek, and Madoka looks at her. “I’m sorry you can’t comfort them. I’m sorry you can’t hold them or wipe their tears or tell them it’s going to be okay.”

Homura thinks of the stars, untouchable, millions of miles away but always watching, always  _ there. _ Even when she can’t see them.

“It’s alright.” Homura reaches up and curls her fingers into the spaces between Madoka’s, still pressed to her cheek. “I’ll just have to remember that one day,  _ you’ll _ be able to do all of that.” In the meantime, Homura will just have to watch over them, even when the stars change and flicker and the humans clog the skies until they’re out of sight completely. She’ll stay with them. It’s all she can do.

“I know it hurts you to watch them hurt, Homura,” Madoka says. “But life is a breathtaking thing. I hope one day you can accept that.”

Homura lifts Madoka’s hand off her cheek, and wraps it in both of hers. “Maybe it is. Maybe it is.” Madoka’s hand is small and warm in her own. “But who would I be without you?”

It’s ridiculous, the idea that life only gives and death only takes. They are two phases of a cycle. Homura begins, and Madoka ends. They are separate beings, but they fit together.

In the human language, there are innumerable words for love. The Ancient Greeks alone had six. But Homura likes the languages that sum it up in one word, simply ‘love.’

The idea of trying to love Madoka in one specific way is absurd.

When they kiss, Homura leans downwards and Madoka stretches upwards. Madoka’s hands rest in the dips on either side of Homura’s neck. Homura’s arms wind around Madoka’s waist.

They fit together perfectly.

**Author's Note:**

> (important to remember that homura's name translates to “blaze” or “flame”.)
> 
> EDIT 22/11/2020: i changed my tumblr url so i had to go back and edit the link. other than that, nothing to see here folks !


End file.
